Gochujang Vegan Sauce for Tofu

We've been watching a lot of Korean shows lately and have developed a taste for this spicy red paste. We've also purchased a large 6-quart Gourmet Edge air fryer. You could buy it at Camping World. It is simple to use and easy to clean, with a safe-for-birds ceramic coating, rather than Teflon. This isn't an ad for it. I just like it for quick meals like this one.

 

Ingredients for Sauce

 

Mix in glass measuring cup:

1/8 cup gochujang Korean hot paste

1/8 cup olive oil

1/8 cup rice vinegar

1/8 cup maple syrup

1/16 cup tamari

1 knob ginger, peeled and minced

1 large clove garlic, minced

1 tsp toasted sesame oil, optional

Dash of liquid smoke 

 

Method for Tofu

Air fry two blocks of tofu cut into 1-inch cubes for 20 minutes, shaking them once until they are a chewy texture. Add these to a large frying pan and pour the sauce over it. Cook a few minutes, stirring until all cubes of tofu are coated with the slightly caramelized sauce.

 

Serving Suggestion

Serve with chopped greens (I sauteed our bok choy in olive oil with our yellow squash, a dash of salt, and some minced garlic), fusilli with pesto (I process about two cups of our basil with 1/8 cups nutritional yeast and sweet white miso and 1/2 a cup mixed nuts — in this case pecans and sunflower seeds), sliced tomatoes, and cubed avocado.

We thought this was a perfect summer meal. Here's another variation, with fried rice and roasted vegetables, lettuce, tomato, and avocado.

 

Nasturtium Soup

I’ve enjoyed being introduced to a different set of recipes by following The Vegan Nigerian blog, and there was a link to her bitter greens soup today. I don’t have an African grocer in the area, so I looked up substitutions for bitter greens. This is often how I proceed with my cooking, as, though my pantry is well-stocked, it is not all-encompassing. 

Nasturtium and dandelion leaves came up, among others, so I wandered around the yard picking a colander-full, adding a few leaves of mustard, parsley, and young rutabaga while I was at it. 

She called for red bell pepper and scotch bonnet pepper; I found partial jars of roasted yellow pepper and pickled jalapeño peppers on the top shelf of the refrigerator. It’s always a win to empty that catch-all a little bit. 

I used a small yellow onion instead of a red one, and I added two cloves of garlic because I like it. Hers called for a starchy African yam, and I found a substitute in ground oats. It was mostly used as a thickener. My dollop of vegetarian soup base was generous enough to preclude any additional salt. I used coconut oil for sautéing the onions and garlic. I am going to serve it on brown rice with a side of mashed sweet potatoes.

Vegan Frittata

This couldn't be easier. Chop up some onions, zucchini, and broccoli and saute in olive oil in an oven-worthy pan like a cast iron frying pan. Add some chopped vegan sausage (I used original Tofurky) and chopped tomatoes, salt, and pepper. Pour on two containers of Just Egg (shake it well before using). Bake in the same pan at 375F for a few minutes and then sprinkle on shredded vegan cheese. I used Violife parmesan. Bake another 15-20 minutes or until it is set. It might take less time in your oven.

Use a knife to loosen the edges and then cut it into wedges. I ate mine on a toasted bun. It sets up and can be reheated later.

Vegan Western Omelet with Garbanzo Flour and Just "Egg"

Breakfast was hearty this morning when I simplified and added to a vegan chickpea or garbanzo beans flour recipe I found online for a vegan omelet. You can change it any way you'd like, subbing different vegetables and assembling it how you wish. If you have any problems with the flipping, just call it a scramble. It will taste the same.

I used a little of the Just Egg product, found in many grocery stores near the animal eggs. It is a yellowish liquid in a plastic bottle that has a date on it. Be sure it is not out of date. You can use it within a week for a few different recipes. Try french toast, a scramble, or a frittata. It is made mostly of mung bean protein with a coagulant that lends an egg-like texture, and it is not seasoned, so you can use it in a variety of ways. It also comes frozen in premade folded pretend eggs for breakfast sandwiches.

My partner took a bite before I had a chance to take my photo, and he is the one who dubbed it a western. It has no ham substitute, and my pepper was red, not green, and there were no onions due to the current salmonella outbreak, but you can call it a western if you'd like and style it however you'd like.

Vegan Garlic Scape Pesto

Garlic scapes grow up from the center of hard-neck garlic plants in the spring. Break off the curling round stems with small protuberances on top when they are young and tender; otherwise, they turn into flowers and seeds. They have a mild garlic flavor and can be used raw like chives.

An old friend posted a garlic scape pesto recipe online. In the refrigerator I had a small bag of scapes I'd picked, so I quickly veganized it and made some. We've been eating it on Yeasty Cheeze Crackers and now we are about to eat some on pasta.

Theirs called for pine nuts; I had Brazil nuts, plus I added some seeds. Theirs spoke of parmesan; I used a combo of nutritional yeast flakes and light miso. Theirs named canola oil; I substituted olive oil. Other than that, it is just the same! 

Toast the nuts and seeds in a pan and add to everything else in a processor. Maybe you should cut up the scapes first; I didn't, so I ended up adding more oil and changing processors before it all came together.

Dosa Vegan Crepes

Dosa vegan crepes are pretty easy to make if you have the right equipment — like a cast iron griddle and a blender. Dosas are slightly fermented pancakes made of soaked and blended white rice, a type of lentil, and a few fenugreek seeds. 

See how they are full of holes? That’s just from the fermentation; no baking powder or baking soda or yeast is needed. I suppose right before cooking you could add some salt, but not before, as it might inhibit the fermentation process. Usually I eat these with savory fillings and sauces, but this morning I spread them with vegan cream cheese and some raspberry jam and topped them with maple syrup and Soyatoo whipped cream

Dosa Recipe

Ingredients
2 cups white rice
1 cup red lentils (usually urad dal or black lentils, but these work)
1 tablespoon fenugreek seeds
Water to rinse, soak, blend

Method
Rinse the rice and soak overnight in three cups water. Rinse the lentils and fenugreek seeds and soak overnight in three cups water. In the morning, drain them separately and blend them separately with enough water to make the blender go around. Blend until nearly smooth and just a little gritty. Mix them together in a glass bowl, crock, or enameled pot. You want to end up with a pourable batter on the thick side. Cover with a dish towel and let ferment for eight hours. The time could vary depending on the room temperature. You can add some non-iodized salt if you’d like.

New Post on LifelongVegan.org

Check out my son's updated illustration on his vegan blog. He discusses animal testing. He also updated his About Me page.

Why Vegans Are Skinny and Weak

A new Lifelong Vegan post written by my son on “Why vegans are skinny and weak.” Truth or misconception? Read to find out! (Hint: They're not.)

New Lifelong Vegan Blog Starting Up

Pragmatic Vegan

Discussing everything you need to be healthy, fit and well as a vegan for life

Check out my son's new vegan blog and ask him some questions. He likes researching the answers and has been making quite a study of the vegan diet. His first post is about some supplements to add to an all-vegan diet for those who are hoping to make a long-term commitment.

Vegan Quick Tomato Soup

Ever feel nostalgic for childhood comfort foods? Maybe a little tomato soup like your mom used to make from a can? Except maybe there's junk in the soup can you'd rather avoid. How about a quick vegan tomato soup you can make to mimic it? Serve with oyster crackers for the full deal.

Ingredients
1 small can organic tomato paste
1/4 teaspoons of garlic powder, onion powder, and oregano
1 teaspoon tamari (or vegan soup stock concentrate)
Sprinkle of black or red pepper
Squirt of agave syrup (sweetener)
1 cup unsweetened soy or other plant milk
1 cup water
1 Tablespoon olive oil (optional)

Method
In a pot, empty a can of organic tomato paste. Add garlic powder, onion powder, oregano, tamari, pepper, and agave. Stir in soy milk, then water. Heat, pour in bowl, add oyster crackers. Enjoy!

Vegan Chestnut Coconut Cream

Before I forget what I did, here is a yummy vegan cream made with chestnuts and coconut milk. Usually I make whipped cream with Morinu tofu. Yesterday we had picked six quarts of organic strawberries at my friend's long, straw-mulched patches bordered with rhubarb, so all I needed to do was make the shortcake and cream.

Tonight I made a shortcake, and then went to get the box of aseptic silken tofu. What? No tofu? How to make cream? I spied a 5.3-ounce packet of ready-to-use organic roasted peeled chestnuts. Hmmm. I wondered how they would blend up with a 15-ounce can of coconut milk. Very nicely, I am happy to report. Think of this as a nut cream and the tan color won't make you wish for a bright-white whipped cream.

Vegan Pineapple Upside Down Cakelets

It occurred to me that the organic canned pineapple rings would fit into the bottoms of a shallow, wider muffin tin I own, so I decided to make VEGAN PINEAPPLE UPSIDE DOWN CAKELETS. There were only eight holes in the tin, so I got a small bread tin ready for any extra. It turns out there were ten slices in the can, which fit into the two tins just right.

This recipe is usually made in a rectangular glass dish, but it can easily be made in any baking dish. It would probably even work in narrow-bottomed muffin tins, with the pineapple rings curved. One son asked why I didn’t make them more often, so I think they liked them.

Vegan Burritos

There’s not always time for an elaborate vegan meal. There are some fallback easy-to-cook nutritious vegan foods to fill the belly. Burritos are one of them. I had to work all day (from home), so I started soaking some white beans early in the day. They hadn’t gotten bigger after a few hours, so I heated them and let them soak some more. Then I poured off the water and added fresh water. I put them on the back of the stove to simmer for a few hours. 

 

Another way to do this, if you couldn’t check on them during the day to stir them and add more water because you work outside the home would be to use a slow cooker — to have your beans hot and ready when you return, after soaking them overnight. Use your instapot or pressure cooker if you have one. Or, of course, open and heat a can of beans!

Ingredients

1 package whole wheat tortillas

1 can white or pinto beans, seasoned

2 cups cooked kale and onions, stir-fried

3 tblsp. gomasio

Chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, avocado — 2 small ones of each

Creamy miso dressing to taste

Rice — optional

Method

I stir-fried some kale and onions. I dry-roasted some sesame seeds and salt to make gomasio. I chopped up some tomatoes, cucumbers, and avocado. I heated whole wheat tortillas in the toaster oven until they were soft. None of this took very long. I added seasoning to the white beans (see previous post recipe for white bean soup). 

 

I assembled my burrito, adding a dollop of Creamy Miso Dressing (see previous post recipe) on top of the beans, kale and onions, tomato and avocado. I sprinkled it with gomasio. I took a picture. I called the boys to come and make their own. They heated up some rice and added that to their burritos, as they wanted an even more hearty meal. We all ate and were happy. Healthy vegan meals can be made without a lot of effort.

Samosa Style Pasties/Pastries

One of my daughters said she couldn’t make pie, so I wrote down the recipe again and mentioned she could make it sweet or savory — which led to my wanting to eat a SAMOSA. The crust was easy to make. I made a double recipe and rolled out two big crusts. Then, because I don’t attend to the fancy details of life, I cut them into random blocky shapes. I got about five per crust — ten in all.

Now, for the filling. But, oh! There were no potatoes in the house. What to do? I began by sautéing a large onion in olive oil. I sprinkled on some tamari. That’s always a good start. I opened a can of green peas and dumped them in. But I still needed something more substantial. Luckily I had made some of the okara patties the night before — the ones seasoned with Indian spices and basil instead of cilantro. They also had carrots, onions, and peppers in them and a bit of tomato sauce with big chunks of oyster mushrooms in it. So: plenty of fodder for a samosa. I threw it all in the pan.

I had to contain myself to keep from spooning too much of the filling onto the pastry shapes. I found it easiest to rest the flattened dough shape on my palm, with the center cupped down. That gave me a better idea of how much filling to glop in the middle. Then I folded the sides up to the center and pinched it closed. I placed all the samosas on one baking sheet and baked them in a preheated oven at 425 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes.

Tofu Quiche

TOFU QUICHE is pretty easy to make. I think I have a better recipe than this, but I was in a hurry last night, so I just sautéed some onions, blended up the tofu and seasonings, pressed a crust into a quiche pan (a pie plate will do), and baked it for 40 minutes at 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Serve with some greens or a salad.

Ingredients

1 bottom crust

1 onion — chopped and sautéed in olive oil

1 package — tofu

1/3 cup — nutritional yeast

2 Tblsp. — arrowroot powder or cornstarch

1 red pepper — minced

1 Tblsp. — tamari

1 Tblsp. — vegan Worcestershire sauce

1 Tblsp. — balsamic vinegar

1 Tblsp. — brandy or 1/3 cup white wine

Method

Make one crust and press it into a quiche pan or pie plate. I added a little nutritional yeast and gomasio (toasted sesame seeds and salt) to my dry ingredients. I also added too much oil, so I’m not giving out THAT recipe.

Saute the chopped onion until just beginning to brown. Spread on the crust.

Blend the other ingredients as best you can. You will have to be stirring from above, carefully. I, as usual, managed to chip off the end of my bamboo spoon. I guess it added some roughage to the meal. If you add a tad of water, it might make this easier, but I wanted to keep it thick and spreadable.

Spread the smooth tofu mix on the onions. Bake at 375F for forty minutes.

Vegan Doodle

Besides cooking vegan food, I also like to draw. Lately, I've been drawing on my iPad with my finger, using the Paper 53 app. This is my latest drawing of a typical dinner in our house.

Paper 53 gives weekly prompts, and this week it was Bon Appetit. Of course, I had to illustrate a vegan meal ...

Sweet 'N' Salty Cashew Tofu

My fifteen-year-old son Dean made dinner the other night and said I could use his recipe for SWEET ‘N’ SALTY CASHEW TOFU for my blog. We all liked it, so I will.

Ingredients

 

Tofu 

1 block tofu

1 tblsp. olive oil

 

Cashew Mix

½ cup — cashews, chopped (or not, as in my photo)

1 Tblsp. — tamari, to taste

1 Tblsp. — nutritional yeast

2 tsp. — water

1 tsp. — ginger root powder (or fresh, minced ginger root)

1 tsp. — red pepper flakes, or to taste

1 ½ Tblsp. — fresh squeezed lemon juice

2 tsp. — agave nectar

 

Method

Cut tofu into cubes and fry in olive oil in a cast iron pan on high heat, stirring just enough so it doesn’t burn. Once the tofu becomes chewy on the outside, add the cashew mix, lower the heat to medium, and stir constantly. Once the flavors have merged, turn off flame and serve warm.

I served this with pesto rotini and tomatoes from our garden.

Vegan Crock Cheeze made with Tofu

My friend Eileen offered me some of her vegan sister Denise’s Crock Cheeze. Thicker than a dip, it reminded me of the soft cheese in brown ceramic crocks my friend Biffy and I used to eat after school when I would visit her family’s restaurant. The crocks were set out along the bar in the darkened room, and we would sit on tall stools while slathering the cheese on crackers.

This vegan cheeze was not orange colored, but it had the same texture and tang. What was in it? I had to know! Denise kindly emailed me the recipe, which came out of Jo Stepaniak’s 1997 vegan cookbook, Vegan Vittles. The cheeze turned out to be tofu-based, not nut-based, as I thought it might have been.

I doubled the recipe, as Denise recommended, and I added red pepper, since my paprika was kind of old and brown looking. Note to self: Buy some fresh paprika. Next time I might add some turmeric for its yellow color. I also think some roasted red pepper would be a nice addition.

 

Peanut Tofu Sauce

I only had one block of tofu last night that had to be stretched to feed several people. Peanut butter came to my rescue. I mixed a few things together to come up with a peanut tofu sauce that went nicely over some linguine. I found it to be a very filling meal. In fact, I ate way too much of it and ended up rolling around in pain between my fellow Stargate Atlantis rerun-watchers, who were less than sympathetic. Still, it tasted good going down.

Some Good Reasons to Eat a Vegan Diet

 

Veganism & the Environment: by the Numbers

My daughter posted a graphic on Facebook. It is from Culinary Schools and makes the information a little more accessible. Check it out:

http://www.culinaryschools.org/yum/vegetables/